Number of the day

$370,706

That's how much Goldman Sachs set aside on average for compensation and benefits expenses per employee in the first nine months of 2010 - a total of $13.1 billion spread across 35,400 workers. That may sound like a lot, but the average is down from $527,192 per employee in the same period in 2009.

Hear here

"There are customers that are calling us and asking us to run empty into the

border states."

Eugene Moser, president of Challenger Motor Freight in Cambridge, Ontario, on how Canadian companies have asked him to send empty trucks to Michigan, Ohio and other U.S. states, so they can return full of everything from automotive parts to consumer goods. Economists say a strong currency and weak U.S. demand are to blame for declines in Canadian exports and factory sales, which remain 14 percent below their July 2008 peak. The United States is buying the smallest share of Canada's exports since November 1982. Story on C4.

The Commerce Department today will report housing starts for November, and economists in a Bloomberg survey expect the depressed economic indicator will rise to an annual rate of 550,000 units. That would be a 6 percent increase from October, which set a low for the year of 519,000. Five years ago, during the housing boom, the rate topped 2 million units.